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GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

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Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#71

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

ghaff wrote: post #51
IshKebab wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could still make some money from showing non-tracking ads to European users and tracking ads to American ones. Perhaps not as much, but as they have already written the content I don't see why you would just give up on that revenue stream.

The point is that, if I'm not making material money from EU residents today, it may be easier for me to just make it clear that I'm not trying to do business in the EU than figuring out if I need to do anything to become compliant. I may in fact be 100% compliant, but it may take effort to figure that out and there's potentially still some risk. Personally, I do no tracking on my sites so it's irrelevant to me but I…

This could definitely happen, but would not make sense for the Chicago Tribune and LA Times, which are big corporate entities united as subsidiaries of Tronc, Inc., and could even pool resources to have one compliance office among them from the parent company.

For a large, well-capitalized company to make this choice, it’s an indication of a few possibilities:

- Tronc doesn’t practice anything close to adequate IT practices to even know its compliance status, and pefers not to invest in doing so.

- Tronc can’t remain profitable if displaying GDPR-compliant pages in EU (this seems fleetingly unlikely, given the specific attempts to grow digital subscribership by marketing the papers as more global).

- Tronc is trying to make a political statement, like a boycott, hoping that many companies do this and it puts pressure on mitigating GDPR.

So while I agree with you for some small businesses just not wanting to mess with GDPR compliance or risks, however small, it certainly isn’t aviable explanation for these newspapers.

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#72

Post by [deleted] »

flohofwoe wrote: post #48

Alternatively there's this: https://eu.usatoday.com/ No ads, no tracking, no cookies, not even Javascript. Just plain HTML+CSS and JPEG images. The whole front page is around 650 KByte, and by far most of this is in the image files. As a result the page looks very clean and loads very fast. This is what all news web sites should look like, not just for EU readers (although I fear that this is just a temporary solutio…

[deleted]

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#73

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

krageon wrote: post #52
_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #14

In 1y every website will have a click through EULA with 20 pages that loads before everything else and doesn't store IPS - and which no one is reading - privacy served. Just when they install from the App store or install Microsoft Office.

This is the EU, not the US. This law was specifically crafted to prevent the kind of reptilian behavior that you're describing here. I honestly (and perhaps naively) expect you to understand the source material a little bit better if you're going to make blanket statements about it here.

Always a good idea to include a personal attack in your comment, well done!

Second, my point is not about what I'm doing but about what others will do. I have not and will not work for companies who base their business model on selling data without consent, ad networks or in duping people. I've declined several very lucrative CTO offers in large companies due to their privacy stand.

Third, I'm for more data protection and privacy and removed my Facebook and other social media accounts years ago. I would also not click such EULAs as I do not care about "news" sites.

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#74

Post by philipov »

roel_v wrote: post #70
ghaff wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>closing yourself for an market that size will hurt more than changing a few thing to be compliant Only if I make significant money from that market. If most of my revenue/profit comes from the US and it's problematic to "do business" in the EU or China, why wouldn't I want to just cut access off rather than dealing with potential hassles? The fact that it's potentially a large market is irrelevant to me. In this cas…

I see this 'VPN' argument a lot, but it's wrong. If the Chicago Tribune tracks users accessing their site through a VPN, without informed consent, they are in violation. Art 3 para 2 in b makes the Regulation apply to them and doesn't make provisions about whether the controller or processor has a way to find out if the behaviour of the data subject takes place within the Union. I don't see any reason for a different…

So you're saying that if I block my site to EU IPs, and someone uses a VPN to look like they're coming from the US and bypass that, they can then sue me under the GDPR? No way.

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#75

Post by voidr »

firic wrote: post #10

Things like this will test how much EU citizens value their privacy. Of course there will be some sites they will not be able to visit but time will show if they are okay with that. These rules are very similar to rules limiting loans. No matter how desperate a person is and how low credit they have, in the US you can't give them a loan for above a certain amount of interest. That could be terrible for a poor person…

> the result will probably be that a lot of free websites ban EU users

Good riddance, at least we know what websites we shouldn't have visited in the first place.

> smaller companies take their place with products that either cost money or will be a bit worse.

Or they will be better and still be free.

News companies are dying, news is commodity, if I can't read something on the LA times, I'm sure I'll find that same article on some other news site.

> small competitors will be to afraid of the law and shut EU users out

It's not a complicated piece of legislation, the short version is this simple: only collect data you actually need on your user to offer your service and be prepared to explain why, that's basically it.

> But we as a society are willing to accept that if the result is that more loans will be "reasonable".

The actual reason is that if you don't limit the loans, your economy will collapse.

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#76

Post by joering2 »

hartator wrote: post #35
akhatri_aus wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many of us the meaning of the internet itself is being able to access things at 5000 km away.

No one needs that kind of access, crazy thoughts.

Bill gates agrees with you ;)

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#77

Post by dorfsmay »

_mlxl wrote: post #9

Blocking access at geographic level across pretty clear signal they don't care about users/readers in those regions (I think it's hard to argue otherwise, the law has been coming for 2 years). Obviously they cater to people interested in local news in those regions. However, I hope they will rectify and allow access again for EU users at some point soon. It seems to go against the idea of a borderless internet, and I…

> clear signal they don't care

Or, it could mean they hadn't realised how much work it'd take to be GDPR compliant, and decided to temporarily use geographical blocking until they can be compliant.

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#78

Post by ghaff »

roel_v wrote: post #70
ghaff wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>closing yourself for an market that size will hurt more than changing a few thing to be compliant Only if I make significant money from that market. If most of my revenue/profit comes from the US and it's problematic to "do business" in the EU or China, why wouldn't I want to just cut access off rather than dealing with potential hassles? The fact that it's potentially a large market is irrelevant to me. In this cas…

I see this 'VPN' argument a lot, but it's wrong. If the Chicago Tribune tracks users accessing their site through a VPN, without informed consent, they are in violation. Art 3 para 2 in b makes the Regulation apply to them and doesn't make provisions about whether the controller or processor has a way to find out if the behaviour of the data subject takes place within the Union. I don't see any reason for a different…

The relevant language is in recital 24. “Factors such as the use of a language or a currency generally used in one or more Member States with the possibility of ordering goods and services in that other language, or the mentioning of customers or users who are in the Union, may make it apparent that the controller envisages offering goods or services to data subjects in the Union.”

If the Chicago Tribune doesn't envisage offering goods or services to EU residents, it's not covered. And geofencing out EU residents is a pretty good indicator it's not. (Frankly, it probably doesn't have to--it's unclear why someone would think the Chicago Tribune was actively marketing to EU residents anyway--but geofencing them out certainly eliminates any ambiguity.)Someone can't find their way to a site, fake being outside the EU, yell gotcha, and expect European regulators to do anything about it whatever people may wish.

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#79

Post by AJRF »

dorfsmay wrote: post #77
_mlxl wrote: post #9

Blocking access at geographic level across pretty clear signal they don't care about users/readers in those regions (I think it's hard to argue otherwise, the law has been coming for 2 years). Obviously they cater to people interested in local news in those regions. However, I hope they will rectify and allow access again for EU users at some point soon. It seems to go against the idea of a borderless internet, and I…

> clear signal they don't care Or, it could mean they hadn't realised how much work it'd take to be GDPR compliant, and decided to temporarily use geographical blocking until they can be compliant.

It took them 2 years to realise that? That’s the same as not caring.

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#80

Post by ghaff »

voidr wrote: post #75
firic wrote: post #10

Things like this will test how much EU citizens value their privacy. Of course there will be some sites they will not be able to visit but time will show if they are okay with that. These rules are very similar to rules limiting loans. No matter how desperate a person is and how low credit they have, in the US you can't give them a loan for above a certain amount of interest. That could be terrible for a poor person…

> the result will probably be that a lot of free websites ban EU users Good riddance, at least we know what websites we shouldn't have visited in the first place. > smaller companies take their place with products that either cost money or will be a bit worse. Or they will be better and still be free. News companies are dying, news is commodity, if I can't read something on the LA times, I'm sure I'll find that same…

>News companies are dying, news is commodity, if I can't read something on the LA times, I'm sure I'll find that same article on some other news site.

Or the original news simply ceases to exist as is already happening at the local level in many cases. There's probably a continuing market for some global news organizations that are at least muddling through with subscriptions and other products. (Or not. See story on Time Inc. recently.) But I suspect the non-national/international journalism will continue to decline.

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